The Weeping Willow [Dean Thomas]

chapter seven

A week had passed since Leta's Nan had revealed the truth about her parents, and since that point, Leta has barely left her bedroom. She had told Dean to give her some space while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do next and so far he had respected that.

But even he was beginning to worry, he went to the willow tree every day hoping to bump into her and try and help. He was glad that they were getting closer and were beginning to form some remnants of a friendship, but they were starting their fifth year in a week and Dean didn't want things to go back to how they were before; truthfully he had grown to like having Leta around.

Leta lay staring at the ceiling, her duvet wrapped tightly to her chest, all she could think about was how little she knew about her family. She hadn't mentioned her parents to her Nan since the argument, she was biding her time working up some way to ask questions without her Nan getting too defensive.

Leta didn't want to stay mad at Dionne, she was after all the only family she had left, but she couldn't help feel so betrayed. Spending so much time thinking about her mum and dad, and ways to find out more about them, she had completely overlooked the fact that in less than a week she was going to have to see Harry, Ron and Hermione.

She was going to have to listen to their excuses and watch them lie to her like they had been since they started Hogwarts. The three of them always seemed to be hiding things from Leta, at first she thought that it was just her mind overworking itself, making her see things that were never actually there. But as the years have passed and their friendship grew tighter, it became more obvious that they were keeping something from her; Leta was determined to find out what.

Fed up with feeling sorry for herself Leta crawled out from the safety of her bed, the only place that has provided her comfort over the last few days. Her room was an explosion of clothes, books, paper and school books. She had tried to go through her parents' stuff again, looking for any discrepancy or a slither of them as people, but all she could find were old school stuff. She sat on the floor with her back pressed against her bed, she gingerly picked up the photo with the order on it, tracing her parent's face with her forefinger. She had studied this photo so many times and under such scrutiny hoping that something would come to her out of thin air when nothing happened she gently place the photo on the desk and began to get her life in order.

Moving around the room with newfound motivation Leta set about picking up the clothes on the floor, throwing the dirty ones in the basket and hanging up the clean ones. As her floor became more visible Leta found herself relaxing. Picking up the basket full of dirty clothes and bedding Leta traipsed downstairs to put on a load. The relationship between Dionne and Leta was far from fixed but they decided to carry on acting as if nothing had happened between them.

Leta stepped into the bathroom and stared at her appearance. Her hair was matted and greasy and her skin was dull. She splashed her face with some water hoping to freshen herself up. But when she looked back into the mirror and nothing had changed she sighed. Then it hit her.

Friday 25th September 1995

Dear Diary,

I have had the best idea ever. I am going to completely reinvent myself. I am so tired of everything, so I am going to change it, do you get it? Of course, you aren't going to reply because you are essentially my own thoughts but still if you were a person I think you would get it too. So take this as my plan to reform myself and how I want to do it. School starts in a week and I want the new me to turn up at platform 9 3/4 a changed woman.

step 1: dye my hair, I've been thinking about doing this for a while now. I have no idea what colour to do but definitely something colourful. Maybe blue or red